As with most people, my first experience with a unicycle was at the circus when I was just 9 years old. I remember seeing them ride and instantly said I need to do that! I tortured my parents and they eventually bought me a Unicycle. It was the middle of the winter, so I went down to the laundry room and spent hours and days trying to just sit on the thing. After many months later, I finally started to get the hang of it. By now, it was warmer outside so I started working off of the basketball pole in the driveway. Determined not to give up, many hours and months later I was up and riding through the neighborhood.

Now, the real fun began. I was able to teach my brother and 5 other friends how to ride and removed most of the pain I went through from my experience. Soon we were all riding and even playing sports on our unicycles, including basketball, hockey, frisbee and football.

From that point on I brought my unicycle everywhere, including sleep away camp. Not only was camp the best experience, being able to ride around the camp on my unicycle, was the most fun of all. During the school year I convinced my parents to let me ride 4 miles each way to school and back and unfortunately in the college years, just didn’t find the time to ride.

After suffering miserably with stomach issues and living on cortisone drugs, I was diagnosed with Chron’s Disease in 1995. My doctors would preach about the importance of exercise, so I took up mountain biking with my wife. The problem was I didn’t enjoy riding in the cold weather, so once the November chill arrived, my exercise was put on hold until the spring.

Soon the holidays were here and guess what I got? A Unicycle! I hopped on and soon realized that my exercise could not only be fun, but enjoyable at the same time. I’ve been riding every day and am happy to say I have traded in the 21 pills a day that I relied on, for a much more enjoyable ride on my 36” Coker.